JUST Stop Oil protesters caused an “immediate risk of serious harm” to Formula One drivers and race marshals when they invaded the track during last year’s British Grand Prix, jurors have been told.

Louis McKechnie, 22, and originally from Weymouth, is one of six co-defendants appearing at Northampton Crown Court who all deny one charge of causing a public nuisance at Silverstone last July.

Jurors were shown on-board footage from Formula One drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon as they passed three men and two women who were sitting down on the track’s Wellington Straight.

McKechnie appears alongside David Baldwin, 47, Emily Brocklebank, 24, Alasdair Gibson, 22, Bethany Mogie, 40, and Joshua Smith, 29.

All but one of the six defendants – David Baldwin – admits entering the racetrack last July.

Baldwin, of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, was found in a car park along with glue, cable ties and a Just Stop Oil banner and is said by the Crown to have been “in it together” with his co-defendants.

Louis McKechnie – who said he was “f****** terrified” of going on to the track in a video message recorded a day before the incident – was arrested after being taken off the circuit.

Opening the prosecution case on Wednesday, prosecutor Simon Jones told the jury: “Each of these defendants were present at Silverstone and they were intent on causing a disruption to the race.

“It is not in dispute that five of the defendants in this case – all of them save for David Baldwin – made it on to the racetrack and they did not have permission to be there.

“The prosecution say that there was clearly an immediate risk of serious harm being caused. Plainly they could have been struck by fast-moving vehicles with obvious severe consequences

“They will inevitably say that this was done as an act of protest and in order to bring publicity to the cause and demand they make – of no new oil and gas licences.”

“We say that their actions also caused risk to the drivers themselves and the marshals.”

Among the video exhibits shown to the jury on the first day of the trial was footage of a three-car collision at the first turn of the race, in which no drivers were seriously hurt.

McKechnie; Baldwin; Brocklebank, of Yeadon, Leeds; Gibson, from Aberdeen; Mogie, from St Albans; and Smith, from Lees in Oldham, all deny the charges.

The trial continues and is expected to last three weeks.